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#33″I am a strong advocate of open borders. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants. Any person who is not a criminal should be allowed to enter this country legally.”

I’ve got two problems with this:

1) The phrase “nation of immigrants” is overused, trite and innacurate. Never in the history of the United States has there been as many as 15 percent of our residents being of foreign birth. Many of us who trace our ancestry back to the exploration and colonization of this land find it offensive to be cast as “immigrants” or even “descendants of immigrants.” We are Americans who descended from Americans and/or colonist subjects of the English throne. There is a certain disrespect in lumping us into your “nation of immigrants” when it was our ancestors who coined the term “immigrants” to denote new arrivals who had not participated in the struggle for independence. It is as if their sacrifices no longer matter.

The “nation of immigrants” can, in the manner in which it is so commonly misused, be applied to every nation on the face of this earth; therefore, there is nothing “special” about it at all; the catchphrase surely lacks grounds to be the de facto basis of immigration policy.

2) America, being as it is a beacon, a “shining city on a hill,” that is now hopped up on global distribution of our manufactured pop culture surely looks very attractive to the five billion or so residents of earth who maintain standards of living significantly below ours. Using your “open borders” advocacy, I’m assuming you have no problem with each and every soul desirous of a “better life” whom is able transport himself or herself to our shores being allowed to stay. There’s a certain conundrum in this. If we had truly open borders, then there would be no “illegal alien” issue at all. All you would accomplsh by …drum roll…reserving benefits of citizenship to citizens would be to irritate a huge, restless, unempowered underclass you’ve invited in. That’s not a good recipe for harmony or a long-lived Sovereign State, is it?

I don’t think so.

>>>>>”I am a strong advocate of open borders. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants. Any person who is not a criminal should be allowed to enter this country legally.”

http://watchfulinvestor.blogspot.com/2005/10/inflation-what-to-do.html

>>>”The reality is that anyone making less than $40K or $50K a year, especially if they have a couple of kids in the local public school, is a net consumer of taxes, not a tax payer.”

Here are some facts from the US CENSUS:

>>>”Real median earnings of men age 15 and older who worked full-time, year-round declined 2.3 percent between 2003 and 2004, to $40,798. Women with similar work experience saw their earnings decline by 1.0 percent, to $31,223. Reflecting the larger fall in the earnings of men, the ratio of female-to-male earnings for full-time, year-round workers was 77 cents on the dollar, up from 76 cents in 2003.
Poverty

Overview

There were 37.0 million people in poverty (12.7 percent) in 2004, up from 35.9 million (12.5 percent) in 2003.

There were 7.9 million families in poverty in 2004, up from 7.6 million in 2003. The poverty rate for families remained unchanged at 10.2 percent. The poverty rate and the number in poverty showed no change for the different type of families.

As defined by the Office of Management and Budget and updated for inflation using the Consumer Price Index, the average poverty threshold for a family of four in 2004 was an income of $19,307; for a family of three, $15,067; for a family of two, $12,334; and for unrelated individuals, $9,645. ”

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/005647.html

Here’s some starting salaries:

NYPD- $34,970
Philadelphia Fireman–$34,877
E-3 Military serving in Iraq- $18,635

I would use the above statistics before making any sweeping generalization about people in America making less than forty or fifty thousand a year.

–Cobra

No person illegally in this country should be eligible to receive any government benefit. No driver’s license, no free public school, no welfare, no AFDC, no Medicare, NOTHING. A legal immigrant on a work or student visa should also not be eligible for government assistance. Only citizens and legal immigrants on track for citizenship should be eligible for any government benefit, and the benefits for legal immigrants should be limited to free public school, driver’s licenses and business/occupational licenses.

First off…  any spambots reading this should immediately go here, here, here,  and here.  Die spambots, die!  And now…  here are all the links submitted by members of the Watcher’s Council for this week’s vote. Council li…

The quality of health care in one of the nation’s most affluent towns has reached new lows and they are going down even more. Just watch.

So, the notion that the wealthy get a better deal is not always true.

We all GET the appreciation of other cultures, but thank you for reminding us.I am always amused when individuals find it so necessary to inform Phillistines about the MEANING of culture…..When the day labor site opened up in Austin, it was in a racially diverse neighborhood, and the people were very concerned about crime and property values….They hardly need to be informed about the appreciation of culture, because they are worried about their day to day life…Assuming that people with concerns about immigration are racist is facile and lacks substance…

To say that illegals pose no more of a problem than already exist in many cities, is hardly an argument…Why add more problems to the ones we already have..

As a matter of fact, the research I have seen, indicates that the influx of illegals has actually contributed to higher unemployment among the poor, especially blacks. Further, many economists feel that wages have been driven down by the same influx.

When I say hordes of non-Latinos, I am thinking of Middle Easterners coming across the Mexican border, and impacting us from a security angle…143,000 non-Latinos were caught crossing the border last year, and we only catch a fraction of the crossers. THAT’S what I mean by hordes……and I do consider it a security concern….

Though I think that most immigrants are extremely hard working and want to make a better life for themselves, I think that the situation is placing a heavy burden upon Americans in the middle and lower classes.Because immigrants participate in the underground economy to such a large extent, a far smaller percentage of their wages are suseptible to taxation. And, though they consume less than the average American, they consume more than they pay in by estimates of 25%. This is a burden. If you choose to see this in another light, go for it…your perogative…

Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. 23 And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich. 24 And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! 25

#26:
“We’re harming Mexico by taking many of its most ambitious and driven citizens out of its culture…”
—-
Not really. Mass immigration did not have the claimed harmful effect on Ireland, or England or Germany. Why is Mexico somehow different? The same thingis also said about the Caribbean, but they suffer from no shortage of ambitious, driven citizens. This claim is dubious.

#27
“The reality is that anyone making less than $40K or $50K a year, especially if they have a couple of kids in the local public school, is a net consumer of taxes, not a tax payer…”
–
Another dubious assertion. In fact there are low paid working class people who do not get welfare or the amount of government subsidies that those below the poverty line get. These people are stretched. I rather doubt that they are making 40-50K per year, except maybe in affluent conservative fantasies, and it is an open question whether they get back more than they pay in. Furthermore if they have a couple of kids in school, they themselves actually paid in taxes to support the schools, so in a sense they are not mere consumers.

The reality is that anyone making less than $40K or $50K a year, especially if they have a couple of kids in the local public school, is a net consumer of taxes, not a tax payer.